Chemo is off to a great start

Today we got visual confirmation that Emily is responding well to Chemo. The day started off to what I thought was a bad start. Emily's PICC line had clogged up, which means they couldn't draw her blood for labs. No labs then no chemo, and obviously a blocked line isn't great. They have counter measures for the blocked line which they did and took her labs. Next we met with Emily's Oncologist, Dr. Link. He quickly examined Emily, but really just sat and talked with all of us to get to know us a little better. We talked about Emily's treatment, her going back to school, and our shared passion for snow skiing with our daughters. At the end of our talk, he told us that he wanted to take an X-Ray of Emily to see how she was progressing. We were not expecting this and were excited to see what progress had been made.

Before the X-Ray, Emily got her shot. Wednesday will be the last in this current series and the last IM shot for this stage of Chemo. As usual we had to wait an hour after the shot and then it was off to Radiology. We quickly had the X-Ray, and then went and found Dr. Link for the results.

You didn't need to be a Dr. to see that Emily's progress and reaction to Chemo is off to a wonderful start. Dr. Link started off by showing us a couple X-Ray's from when she first came in. Her left lung completely collapsed an chest cavity full of fluid, and then he showed us an x-ray that made us all extremely happy. Two completely clear lungs, with no fluid in the chest cavity, no visible "mass". He showed us on the X-Ray how he could tell there was zero fluid. He saw one small spot that he suspected could be scar tissue from the cancer, but on the Xray she is looking great. He confirmed that we should be happy, she is responding well to the treatment.

This news couldn't have come at a better time. Lately I've been worried that the chemo may not be working. Or I feel bad about all that Emily is having to go through, and it would have been devastating if all that pain and effort and great attitude she has been putting in had been for little progress or less than great results. It will also make it easier for me to go back to work, knowing things are headed in a good direction.

We have known since the beginning that the tumors are very reactive to the drugs, and the real trick is keeping it from coming back. Because he can't see cancer in the X-Ray doesn't by any means say that this battle is over or will be easy. This news was really as expected. At the same time, if you really are going to take this one day at a time, it's important to be happy about a great start, she couldn't be doing better. In about 3 weeks she will get a CAT scan and a full body PET scan to see in more detail how the cancer is reacting to treatment.

After we got home from the hospital, Emily, Tracy, Haley, and I sat out in the back yard. We blew some bubbles, ate some grapes, and then Emily, Tracy, and I played a hand of Uno. The photo on today's post is of Emily playing Uno. (Tracy won the game.)